When photographer Judy Walgren[1] moved to Colorado from Texas some years ago she asked me, generally, what did I carry in my car? So I gave her a list. The List. She was stunned: “Really Dean?” She asked somewhat taken aback.

Ummmm, well… yeah. Really.

What’s in my car at any given time depends on the season and whatever particular outdoor thing I’m involved in or think I might be involved in. You never know when your boss might just say, “Hey, you’re doing such a great job why don’t you take the rest of the day off and do something fun!” That’s never happened, but it could — even though I wasn’t a Boy Scout[2] I’d hate to be unprepared.

Part of carrying so much stuff is the preparedness thing. Tooling around in the back country means you could find yourself in any number of iffy situations: off the road in an icy ditch, stranded or stuck in a snowstorm or as once happened in Idaho, trying to change a flat tire with really stubborn lug nuts at night while trying to fend off rattlesnakes. Well okay, only two rattlesnakes and they seemed to be merely passing through.

Part of it is laziness. I mean who wants to load and unload gear[3] all the time? Or take anything out of the car once it’s in there ever? Obviously not me.

Motivated by a spate of Spring-cleaning I unloaded my car to see what actually was in it.

Afterwards my friend Craig stopped by and asked what I’d been doing. “I cleaned out my car,” I proudly said. He looked at the car with a raised eyebrow. “But you put it all back in.”